Sunday, August 29, 2004

In their efforts to keep America safe from terrorism the Bush administration's I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby exposed one of our own CIA agents as part of a politically motivated vendetta against her husband.

Now, we hear that a high ranking Defense Department (DOD) official, Larry Franklin (who is close to both Paul Wolfowitz and Douglass Feith) was giving the Israelis classified documents about US policy towards Iran. Franklin is the top Iran specialist at DOD. Now this is not simply a case of a pro-Israeli DOD official sharing intelligence with an ally. In this case, Franklin gave the Israelis a rough draft of an administration policy document that was still being debated at the highest levels of the administration. The LA Times reports that "Officials are concerned because the directive was still being debated by U.S. policymakers at the time, possibly putting the Israeli government in a position to influence the final document, officials said."

I have said several times on this blog that the only thing keeping a dozen or so high ranking Bush administration officials out of jail is the fact the Republican Party controls both houses of Congress. Republican majorities prevent Congressional investigations into the long series of criminal negligence, corruption and crimes technically classified as treasonous (like exposing CIA agents and passing secrets to foreign powers).

1 comment:

There are a sad number of Americans who might do the Ollie North bit here. They start from moral convictions. They think that it is their moral duty to help Israel. They also think that this is in American's best interests. Not radical stuff, although open to debate.

But some are so convinced of it, that they actually would conclude that it is patriotic to spy on America for Israel. Ollie North was the same. He as so convinced that fighting Nicaragua's government was both moral and in America's interest, that he broke the law, sold arms to Iran (to terrorists!) to fund guerrillas in Nicaragua, lied to Congress about it, and still thought himself a patriot.